Choreographic residence 2012

From the 27th October to 6th November 2011

Casa África and its programme Africa in Movement continue to support contemporary African dance through choreographic residencies, as it has previously done with other companies from different countries. These Residencies are created to take in dancers and choreographers during short periods of time so that we can collaborate in developing their creations at our installations.

This time we are inviting two dancers, Adonis Nébiè andAhmed Soura, who belong to the Irene Tassembedo school, with its headquarters in Burkina Faso. The choreographic residence of these dancers is undertaken in three stages and different locations:

From 26th March to 1st April they will be in the Auditorio de Tenerife (Avenida de La Constitución, 1. Santa Cruz de Tenerife), where as well as the residence they will take part in a workshop as part of their programme Window to dancing

From the 17th to the 23rd April they will carry out the final stage of their residence at the BIDE de Barcelona (Barcelona International Dance Exchange).

The África en Movimiento (Africa in Motion) programme is a Casa África initiative for promoting the presence of African stage artists in Spain, with the premises of public diplomacy for cultural cooperation events that are applied by the institution, avoiding paternalism and using these disciplines to bring Africa and Spain closer together.

Initially, the programme will be focused on contemporary African dance, although it does not exclude the idea of becoming involved with other arts. The confirmation that an enormous amount of choreographic wealth exists in the neighbouring continent, which has yet to be discovered by Spanish audiences, has been the deciding factor for setting this programme into motion.

Just as is stated in the 2nd Africa Plan, Africa en Movimiento addresses the desire to "contribute towards improving mutual knowledge between Spanish society and African societies by fostering the dissemination of a plural and contemporary image of both, and promoting exchange and collaboration processes between the two cultures." Following this principle, Casa África´s commitment to Pan-African stage arts rests on these objectives:

To bring Africa closer to public Spanish opinions by using stage arts to provide a real image of the continent, its potential and heterogeneity.

To work closely with the professional stage arts industry in Africa so as to understand its interests and priorities, contributing towards finding potential counterparts in Spain and promoting contact.

To act as a speaker of this industry´s interests and priorities for Spain and the European Union.

Quién es Quién en África

At the opening of the 1st Spain-Ghana Tourism and Trade Forum in Casa Africa, the Ghanaian minister Darko-Mensah said that the African country has much to learn from Spain, but also much to offer “in a relationship in which we all win”

Confiáfrica’s activity focuses on training businesspeople and the technical staff of African chambers of commerce on various actions aimed at facilitating business and mutual understanding between people from the Canary Islands and Africa.